432 
selected. This method is adopted by the Com- 
mission from the Board of Trade, which used it 
for the recruitment of the Labour Exchanges. 
In the circumstances it is curious that instead of 
acknowledging their debt the Commissioners find 
fault with the method adopted for the Labour 
Exchanges. 
4. Quatiryinc Examination.—This method is 
used for subordinate posts tor which educational 
attainments are of less importance than other 
qualities, postmen for instance. More than half 
of the posts in the Service are filled in this way, a 
greater number than by open competition. The 
Commission proposes that the Treasury should 
consider how to ensure that the patronage neces- 
sarily involved in the selection of these men shall 
be suitably exercised. 
The General Civil Service. 
A problem with which many have struggled is 
the finding of employment for the ex-boy-clerk, 
a problem which has resulted from a desire to 
spare the pocket of the taxpayer without sufficient 
regard to other circumstances. The boy is at 
present taken on and employed for a few years 
and then, in many cases, turned adrift. Many 
civil servants have laboured to find employment 
for the ex-boy-clerk. Their labours have, how- 
ever, effected only an alleviation of the evil, and it 
is satisfactory to have the Commission decide that, 
in future, boys must be taken on only with a view 
to permanent employment provided their work 
proves satisfactory. 
An aggravation of the evil was that in spite of 
the published regulations, many boys and their 
parents imagined that a boy selected by open 
competition for the Civil Service was made for 
life. The boy-clerk method of recruiting is to be 
replaced by a new class to be called the Junior 
Clerical Class, who will be recruited at the age of 
sixteen for permanent service. These boys are 
thus made for life in some sense, since provided 
they give satisfaction they may remain in the 
service and attain to a salary of 200]. It ought, 
however, to be made quite clear to this Junior 
Clerical Class that the bulk of them will be hewers 
of wood and drawers of water all their lives and 
never pass the 2ool. limit. The staff posts . to 
which these men may be promoted and the rare 
chances of promotion to a higher class will be 
small in numbers compared with the total numbers 
of the Class, and the bulk of the Class should be 
discouraged from looking forward to such promo- 
tion. Even so it will be difficult for a man who 
attains his maximum salary at thirty-six years of 
age to work on contentedly for thirty years more 
on that salary. 
The General Civil Service will in future be re- 
cruited in three classes: 
1. The Junior Clerical Class, appointed at six- 
teen at the close of the Intermediate School 
Course, 
2. The Senior Clerical Class, appointed at 
eighteen at the close of the Secondary School 
Course. 
10. 2330) VOL. O32 | 
NATURE 
[JUNE 25, 1914 
3. The Administrative Class, appointed at the 
close of the University Course. 
As already stated, the chief change is in the first- 
mentioned class which replaces the temporary boy- 
clerks. In course of time, when the Second Divi- 
sion Clerks have ceased to exist, their work will 
doubtless fall to the Junior Clericals. The second 
and third classes mentioned above are practically 
the Intermediate Class and the Class I. Clerks 
under new names. In all three classes, the con- 
ditions as to age and subjects are to be coordi- 
nated more closely than at present with the corre- 
sponding school epoch. It is, for instance, high 
time to abolish the test in copying manuscript 
which now stands in the examination schemes of 
the Boy Clerks and Second Division Clerks. The 
importance of the test to the Departments must 
be much reduced now that good handwriting is 
required of the Class I. Clerks. 
MR. ROOSEVELT IN BRAZIL. 
psn a special meeting of the Royal Geographical 
Society on Tuesday, June 16, Mr. Roosevelt 
gave an account of his recent journey in Central 
Brazil. In his opening remarks he alluded to the 
excellent work of the Telegraphic Commission 
under Col. Rondon in exploring the sandstone 
plateau which, under different names, extends 
west-north-west through northern Matto Grosso 
towards the cataracts of the Rio Madeira, and 
separates the drainage basins of the Paraguay and 
the Guaporé from those of the Xingu, Tapajos, 
and some of the tributaries of the Madeira. To 
the west of the affluents of the Juruena, the 
western fork of the Tapajos, they met with two 
considerable streams which they named _ the 
Ananaz and the Duvida; the ultimate courses of 
these were uncertain, hence the name, meaning 
“doubt” given to the latter. Beyond was an- 
other stream, which was descended and demon- 
strated to be the Gi-parana, which enters the 
Madeira a little below San Antonio. 
On Mr. Roosevelt’s arrival in Brazil it was 
arranged that he and Col. Rondon should conduct 
an expedition down the Rio Duvida. Besides the 
two leaders, the personnel included Mr. Kermit 
Roosevelt, two American biologists, a Lieutenant 
of the Brazilian Engineering Corps, who deter- 
mined the positions by astronomical observations, 
and a Brazilian army surgeon. 
The expedition started in dug-outs from the 
bridge constructed by the Commission across the 
river, and for the first four days good progress 
was made, but then a succession of cataracts was 
met with, and forty-two days were occupied in 
covering one degree of latitude. All the 
cataracts had to be reconnoitred before they were 
negotiated, and in some cases the canoes had to be 
transported by land. At two points where low 
ranges of hills were traversed in narrow gorges 
the canoes had to be warped through with ropes. 
If, as was no doubt the case, these dug-outs were 
of the same type as those with which the writer 
was familiar on the Paraguay near its source, 
